Israel and Hamas approve ceasefire in Gaza

Barak Ravid
·3 min read

Tel Aviv — Israel’s Security Cabinet voted on Thursday evening local time to support a ceasefire with Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza. Hamas officials have also backed the ceasefire.

The state of play: Both sides said the ceasefire would go into effect at 2am on Friday (7pm Thursday ET), but they have sent very different messages about the terms of the ceasefire

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  • The Israeli prime minister’s office said the Egyptian initiative called for a “mutual and unconditional ceasefire." Israeli officials say the basic principle will be “quiet for quiet,” but both Israel and Hamas accepted Egypt’s proposal to discuss more Gaza-related issues at a later stage.

  • But several Hamas officials claimed the ceasefire agreement included commitments about Israeli policy in Jerusalem — including policing at the Al-Aqsa mosque and the possible evictions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem in favor of Jewish settlers — which a senior Israel official flatly denied in a comment to Axios.

  • Background: The current escalation began last Monday in Jerusalem after Israeli police raided the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, or Temple Mount, where Palestinians had been protesting the potential evictions. After the raid, Hamas fired rockets on Israel.

What's next: Egypt, which negotiated the ceasefire with both parties, announced that a security delegation would travel to Gaza and Israel to monitor and help stabilize the ceasefire.

Driving the news: Both sides intensified their attacks over the last 24 hours in anticipation of a ceasefire. Gaza health officials say at least 232 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the crisis, including 65 children. Twelve people have been killed in Israel.

  • Netanyahu has been under growing international pressure to approve a ceasefire, including from the Biden administration, but had insisted up to now that Israel needed additional time to complete its military objectives in Gaza.

  • Biden was criticized from many in his own party for declining to publicly call for a ceasefire earlier in the crisis, but the White House argued its strategy of quiet diplomacy would be more effective.

  • Biden held his first phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi before the ceasefire was announced on Thursday.

Behind the scenes: The Israeli cabinet decision was unanimous.

  • According to an official who attended the cabinet meeting, the chiefs of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin-Bet intelligence service both recommended ending the operation, contending that its objectives had been achieved and two or three additional days of fighting would not lead to further gains.

  • The message from the security chiefs, the source says, was “we are done."

What they're saying:

  • The Israeli security chiefs briefed the cabinet ministers that Hamas' military capabilities were badly damaged — including the group's most sensitive assets like drones, anti-tank units, tunnels and tools for intelligence gathering and electronic warfare. Hamas still has a stockpile of rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv, the officials said, but its rocket systems were damaged as well.

  • A senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told Al-Mayadeen Television that Hamas received guaranties from the Egyptian mediators that the Israeli aggression in Gaza and Jerusalem would stop. “We won and created a new equation with Israel," he claimed.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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